RECORDED 1/11/16: In the first episode of the season, I took the opportunity to muse a little bit about my recent trip to a remote island and my search for a “tribe” that looks like me. Also, I share a recent blog post about my thoughts on the state of Multiracial America. Is this a multiracial or biracial moment or is it a multiracial or biracial movement? I say there is no multiracial movement (at least not yet). What do you say? Listen here or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow
Season 3, Episode 1: Pulitzer Prize Winner Gregory Pardlo
RECORDED 9/28/15: I enjoyed speaking with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gregory Pardlo to kick off Season 3 of The Mixed Experience. Listen in to learn more about his writing, his scholarship, and his connection to the Afro-Viking experience. You can also download the episode on itunes.-Heidi Durrow
Gregory Pardlo‘s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Digest was also shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award and is a current finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; his first collection Totem was selected by Brenda Hillman for the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. Pardlo’s poems appear in The Nation,Ploughshares, Tin House, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry,Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. Pardlo lives with his family in Brooklyn.
Season 2, Summer Short 6: Actress/Writer Katie Malia of web series “Almost Asian”
RECORDED 8/24/15: I loved talking with Katie Malia, creator of the web series Almost Asian. She’s talented and funny and just simply great. You can listen to the show here or download it on itunes.-Heidi Durrow
This is what Katie says about the impetus for creating the webseries: “Growing up half-Asian was very confusing. From filling out ethnicity sections in college applications to introducing lunch trades with pre-trending Japanese food on the grade school playground, before the United Colors of Benetton effect took hold, being the bi-product of an interracial couple was new. Nobody was talking about it, especially in suburban America. Before Obama and yes, Keanu came along, there was no half-anything to admire as a role model, particularly a female one. It’s really no surprise that my best friend growing up was also half-Japanese due to our relatable childhood experiences. And by expanding on these shared experiences, my intention with “Almost Asian” is to celebrate the nuanced mixed-ethnic identity while challenging our social conventions regarding race, nationality, and culture through a comedic lens.”
Katie Malia is an “ethnically-ambiguous” working actress and writer in Los Angeles. Having appeared in over 100+ national commercials and print campaigns and featured on HBO’s Hello Ladies, How I Met Your Mother, The Mindy Project, Sleepy Hollow and Ground Floor, Katie studied at Columbia University in New York and continues to write and create her own content playing numerous original characters, one of which was featured on Funny or Die’s homepage. She also performs stand up around Los Angeles, was a contributing writer for Daily Candy and Time Out LA, and also produced the short film “VARMiNT,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at Dances with Films Festival in Hollywood, the Audience Award at New Orleans Film Festival in 2013, and was a Vimeo “Staff Pick” in 2014. Katie lives in Silver Lake. Oh yeah, and she hates the term “ethnically-ambiguous.” You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Season 2, Summer Short 7: Author Susan Katz Miller, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family
RECORDED 8/31/15: I was excited to speak with Susan Katz Miller about her writing and work on embracing two religious identities in a family.
She is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family. We talk about “post-authenticity” and “bringing the blur” and the parallels between the mixed race experience and the interfaith experience. You can listen to the episode here or download it from itunes.-Heidi Durrow
Author and journalist Susan Katz Miller is both an interfaith child and an interfaith parent. Her father is Jewish, her mother is Protestant: she grew up in Reform Judaism. After marrying a Protestant, Miller and her husband decided to raise their children in both religions, in a community of interfaith families. Miller served as Board Co-Chair of the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington DC.
Miller graduated from Brown University, and began her journalism career at Newsweek in New York. After working in the Los Angeles and Washington bureaus, she moved to Dakar, Senegal for three years. While there, she wrote travel pieces for the New York Times, was tear-gassed in the streets while covering an election, interviewed the President of Senegal for Newsweek International, and wrote Christian Science Monitor pieces from Benin, Togo, the Gambia, and Sierra Leone. On returning to the States, she became a US Correspondent for the British weekly magazine New Scientist. She then spent three years freelancing from northeastern Brazil. After her two children were born, she and her husband settled in the Washington, DC, area, and she founded the first blog devoted to interfaith family communities and interfaith identity,onbeingboth.com, and began blogging at Huffington Post Religion.
Miller’s writing has also appeared in Time, Slate, Utne Reader, Discover, Science, National Wildlife, Health, Moment, Jewcy.com, interfaithfamily.com, and many other publications. Miller studied photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and her photographs have been published in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and International Wildlife. Her work on interfaith families has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, NPR’sHere & Now, NPR’s Diane Rehm Show, on the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and on HuffPost Live, and in dozens of other media outlets. Miller also writes for the Jewish Daily Forward‘s interfaith relationship advice column, The Seesaw.
Season 2, Summer Short 4: Kristen Green Author of Something Must be Done About Prince Edward County
RECORDED 8/10/15 11:00am: I had a great conversation with Kristen Green, author of Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle.
Here is the publisher’s description: “In the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia’s Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community’s white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use for their all-white classrooms, while black parents scrambled to find alternative education for their children. For five years, the schools remained closed in Prince Edward County.Author and journalist Kristen Green grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which didn’t open its doors to black students until 1986. Thirty four years after the Supreme Court ended school segregation, Green first began to learn the truth about her hometown’s shameful history. As a wife and mother in her own multiracial family, the revelations of the haunting period in our nation’s past become more complex and painful as she discovers the role her own grandparents played.
Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County by Kristen Green is a provocative true story that reveals a little-known chapter of American history.”
Kristen Green is also part of a multiracial family and has written movingly about her experiences in articles widely shared on social media like this NPR Code Switch essay. You can listen to the episode here or download it from itunes!
One lucky listener can win a free copy by signing up for my mailing list or email me at heidi(at)heidiwdurrow.com; people on the mailing list are already in it to win it! I’ll pick one lucky listener at random next Monday 8/17.–Heidi Durrow
“Powerful. . . . The author movingly chronicles her discovery of the truth about her background and her efforts to promote reconciliation and atonement. A potent introduction to a nearly forgotten part of the civil rights movement and a personalized reminder of what it was truly about.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Kristen Green grew up in Prince Edward County, Va., the only community in the nation to close its schools for five years rather than desegregate. She attended an all-white academy, which was 
founded in 1959 by her grandparents and other white leaders when the public school doors were locked. The private school did not admit black students until 1986, when she was in the eighth grade.
Kristen has worked for two decades as a journalist at newspapers including The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Boston Globe.
She was recognized by Media General for her local news writing at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2011. She has been awarded the Best of Gannett Outstanding Achievement in Writing, and her work has been recognized by the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists and the National Headliner Awards. Kristen also received a fellowship from the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment at University of Colorado at Boulder. Kristen has a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. She and her husband, Jason Hamilton, and their two young daughters live in Richmond, Va.
Season 2, Summer Short 5: Blaxicans in Los Angeles
RECORDED 8/17/15: I had a great talk with Walter Thompson-Hernandez about his wonderful photo project on Blaxicans of LA. Learn more about how he navigated growing up Black and Mexican in LA and is scholarship on the issue as well as some of his thoughts about whether there is a multiracial movement afoot.
“The w
ay I see it, Blaxicans really challenge the way we think about race and force us to think about racial identities in more inclusive and broad ways. Blaxicans are dual minorities. We represent two of the largest ethnic minority groups. And I think because Blaxicans represent two of the most aggrieved groups in Los Angeles, it’s important to understand that certain sets of issues and challenges that have been traditionally labeled as African American or Latino, ultimately, do not exist for people who self-identify as Blaxicans.” Walter Thompson-Hernandez
Learn more about the project in this LA Times article or listen in on our conversation here or download it on itunes! –Heidi Durrow
Walter Thompson-Hernandez is a researcher, photographer, and documentary filmmaker based out of Los Angeles, California who will begin his doctoral research in the Fall of 2016. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and is a recent graduate of the Stanford University Latin American Studies Master’s program. He is currently a researcher at the University of Southern California (USC), Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII), and Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE), where he is part of a research team that is working on a forthcoming book about Latinos in South LA. Outside of his work at CSII, Walter’s research looks at issues related to immigration, race, Afro-Latinos, and sports in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. His research and projects have been featured by CNN, BBC, Los Angeles Times, Remezcla, and UNIVISION. His latest academic project will be featured in a forthcoming book titled, “Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas.”
instagram:
@mychivas
@blaxicansofla
personal website: wthdz.com
Season 2, Summer Short 3: Schwarz Rot Gold, German Documentary Series about Being Black and German
RECORDED 8/4/15: I loved talking to the filmmakers behind a German documentary series Schwarz Rot Gold. Schwarz Rot Gold portrays ten famous German Black and talks about the past, present and future of identities and racism in Germany. The goal of the project is to raise awareness about racism in Germany and to present role models for young people. Learn more here. And check out their Facebook page too.
“Schwarz Rot Gold” is produced by Jermain Raffington (journalist) und Laurel Raffington (psychologist). The project is motivated by Jermain’s personal experience of growing up as a Black person in Germany as well as Laurel and Jermain’s dream of raising their children in a non-racist, open-minded Germany. The idea to start Schwarz Rot Gold originated in 2012. All portraits were filmed in the summer of 2014. Season 1 was published in April 2015 and season 2 is now in post-production. You can see all of the first season with English subtitles on the filmmakers’ website.
You can hear our complete interview here or download it from itunes.
————-
Jermain was born in 1985 in Hamburg, Germany, and is the eldest of four boys. His mother, who now lives in Sweden, is German and his father, who still resides in Hamburg, is Jamaican. A basketball stipend allowed Jermain to go to a US college in Iowa. Later he played basketball professionally for 7 years in four different teams of the first and second national basketball league in Germany. Jermain married his wife Laurel in 2012. He retired from basketball in the summer of 2014 and is now a sports editor at Vice Germany.
————-
Laurel was born in 1988 in Siegburg, Germany and is the youngest of three. Her mother is American and her father is German. She spent her childhood in Germany, the US and Japan. After completing high school at a German-American school in Berlin, she went to the UK to study psychology. A masters in cognitive neuroscience in Berlin was followed by her current position in psychology research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where she is working on her PhD. Both Jermain and Laurel call Berlin, where they currently reside, their home.
Season 2, Summer Short 2: Writer/Blogger Nicole Blades
RECORDED 8/3/15: I loved speaking with a fellow writer and blogger who has seriously got it going on. Listen in to the conversation I have with Nicole Blades and hear about her journey to becoming a writer, and her thoughts on the Mixed racial and cultural experience as the mom of a mixed kid.-Heidi Durrow
Nicole Blades is an author and freelance journalist who writes about motherhood and race, identity, culture, and technology. Her debut novel, EARTH’S WATERS, was published in 2007 and her second novel, THE THUNDER BENEATH US (Kensington), will be published Fall 2016. You can find her on Twitter @nicoleblades and on Facebook too!
Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Hiram Revels, legislator
Hiram Revels (1822-1901) was the first African-American to serve in the United States Senate. Revels was African-American and Native American, born to free people of color. His first career was as a barber in his brother’s barbershop which he took over upon his brother’s death. He started his education at age 22 and was eventually ordained as an African Methodist Church minister.
According to information from the State Library of North Carolina:
“At the conclusion of the [Civil] war, Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He continued his pastoral duties and founded new churches. In 1868, Revels was elected alderman. Struggling to keep his political and pastoral duties separate and to avoid racial conflict, Revels earned the respect of both whites and African Americans. His success in managing these forces led to his election as a state senator from Adams County, Mississippi. In 1870 Revels was elected as the first African American member of the United States Senate. Ironically, Revels was elected to fill the position vacated by Jefferson Davis almost 10 years earlier. Revels took his seat in the Senate on February 25, 1870 and served through March 4, 1871, the remainder of Davis’ vacated term.”
After his service in the Senate, he served as a university president, and remained active in his ministry. He died in 1901.-Heidi Durrow
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.
Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Lillian Smith, author & social activist
Lillian Smith (1897-1966) was a social critic and author of the best-selling novel Strange Fruit (1944) about an interracial love affair. A white woman, Smith championed the rights of women and minorities in her writing and through her community involvement. According to Wikipedia, Smith “was one of the first prominent Southern whites to write about and speak openly against racism and segregation.” “Segregation is spiritual lynching,” she once said. Smith was the author of several books including Killers of the Dream (1949), Now Is the Time (1955), and Our Faces, Our Words (1964). In a letter to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Smith wrote: “My warmest greetings to you and to your congregation and to your people who are my people too, for we are all one big human family. I pray that we shall soon in the South begin to act like one.”-Heidi Durrow
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.
